" California, for instance, literally forgot to include a RKBA's type clause in their Constitution back in '49..
-- Now, the socialists claim that the State has no obligation to follow the US Constitutions 2nd Amendment.
Some 'conservative' trolls on this site agree, strange as that may sound.."
I don't know anyone on this site who would agree with California's position on the 2nd amendment; it's just plain wrong. Even the most die hard "states' rights" types understand that the Federal Constitution places limits on the states.
I don't agree with California's position on the 2nd amendment, but it is constitutional.
The second amendment has not been "incorporated". When it comes to second amendment issues, therefore, states are bound only by their state constitutions -- California's state constitution (along with, I think, five other states) is mute on the RKBA.
"Another important factor in the small arms-control debate is federalism. Like all the other Bill of Rights Amendments, the Second Amendment was originally added to the Constitution to limit the power of the federal government only. Both the 1876 decision of United States v. Cruikshank and the 1886 decision of Presser v. Illinois recognized this and explicitly stated the Second Amendment limits the power of the federal government only."
"The basic liberties of the Bill of Rights did not become applicable to the states until after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Among other things, the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited the states from depriving "any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Through a tortuous, decades-long process, the Court eventually adopted the view that certain fundamental liberties in the Bill of Rights could be incorporated through the due process clause and turned into limits against the power of the states also. In separate decisions, the right of free speech, the right to freely exercise one's religion, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and so on, were made applicable to the states by the Justices."
"The Second Amendment right to bear arms, however, has never been incorporated by the Court into the Fourteenth Amendment. The result is that today the Second Amendment, whatever it may mean, operates to restrict only the power of the federal government. The states remain unfettered by the Amendment's limitations. They remain essentially free to regulate arms and the right to bear them as they choose, in the absence of strictures in their own state constitutions and laws."
-- time.com, Alain Sanders
You want those bums dictating 'morals' to your kids? You want the courts backing them up in that assumed 'power'?"
Yes, I do believe that state and local governments have a right to legislate for health, safety, and morals under the so called "police power", as it has come to be known.
This is why we have laws against (among other things) obscenity, incest, selling tainted food, having bonfires in your backyard in the middle of a hot dry summer, etc.
Should these things be regulated? That is a subject for debate.
But the fact that states and local governments do have the constitutional power to regulate such things (provided that the Bill of Rights is respected) is not a matter of debate among Constitutional scholars.
That is exactly the argument used by the State of Calif to justify their 'regulations' of assault weapons. 'Banning guns is for health & safety of the children', they cry.
I don't know anyone on this site who would agree with California's position on the 2nd amendment; it's just plain wrong.
Well, now you've met one of the worse.. There are quite a few more.
Even the most die hard "states' rights" types understand that the Federal Constitution places limits on the states.
Welcome to the strange world of "States Rights", where our US Constitution is reviled for its actual words upholding individual rights, -- while 'interpretations' of it that can be used to control 'immoral acts', and prohibit 'evil objects', -- are applauded.